She quickly stood, brushed herself off and started jogging. The first order of the day was to travel undercover, avoiding any open spaces. That would not be a problem in this location; it was a rarity to find any open spaces in The Unforgiving Forest. Next, she needed to find a water source to fill her water container and try to locate some
awanhi
along the way. An hour later, she was in luck. She found a small spring, and shortly afterwards, she located her food. She stuffed her pockets full of the leaves and pulled out her navigator. Now, it was time to go to work.
Her navigator would tell her if she was close to any other form of intelligent life. It could also give her a rudimentary layout of the land, but that was it. She was going to have to use her tracking skills to locate her targets.
She started walking in the direction of the color-coding her screen was indicating. It appeared there were life forms to the north of where she currently stood.
She took off on silent feet, snaking her way through the jungle-like growth. Moving through the forest, nearly undetectable, came easy to Maddie. Her years of backpacking in the mountains of North Carolina had helped her with this skill.
Maddie tuned into her telepathy, careful to keep her own thoughts blocked. It would only take one tiny slip of her enemy for her to gain valuable knowledge of their hiding place. She had approximately three more hours of daylight. If something didn’t turn up in the next two, she would start hunting a safe place to spend the dark night.
Maddie stealthily continued in her northerly direction for another hour, when her telepathic powers alerted her to another’s presence nearby. She began picking up tidbits of thoughts allowing her to formulate her next steps.
Whoever she was tracking was fairly close, indicating Maddie may be closer to their camp than she originally thought. There appeared to be four enemy targets. Locating them so that she could determine where the weapons cache might be was her first priority. She wanted to be close, yet far enough away to remain undetected. She decided it would be in her best interest to locate a place around her current location to spend the night.
It didn’t take long for her to find the perfect spot: a giant
drundle
tree. It closely resembled a live oak except its branches grew much higher off the ground, affording her the necessary protection. Animals generally couldn’t climb
drundles
, because they couldn’t reach the branches. She would have to find a way up to the first set of limbs. After that, it would just be a matter of going from limb to limb, until she reached an adequate altitude. She looked around and eventually found the perfect thing. It was a thick vine that she could use as a makeshift rope. The vine was small enough that she could pull it up and store it in the tree, keeping other creatures and enemies from following her up.
After quickly setting up her shelter, she patiently waited for her enemy to make their move.
Picking up bits and pieces of information, she was able to deduce that the weapons were about two miles from her shelter. Maddie decided to get a decent night’s sleep and head over there at first light. Sucking on her
awahni
leaves for nourishment, she sipped on her water and eventually fell asleep.
Maddie awakened to the snap of a twig in the predawn hours. Her night vision had steadily improved since she had been on Vesturon. Though Vesturions had excellent night vision, with the ability of their pupils to elongate and dilate extensively, Maddie had enough human blood running through her veins that prevented her from having true night vision, yet she was able to distinctly see what had broken the tiny twig. One of her enemies stood directly beneath her!
She had two choices. One, she could drop down and take him out, or two, she could wait and follow. She opted for the second option to get the biggest bang for her buck. She wanted to use this one to lead her to the rest of her targets.
The enemy continued walking, and when he was far enough away, Maddie scrambled out of her perch and shadowed him undetected. This was Maddie’s lucky day! He led her right to the jackpot. Now, all she needed to do was to figure out a way to capture them so that she could retrieve their communicators and weapons.
Maddie made the decision to take them out one by one. She would need to improvise on how she would keep them imprisoned. She carried no wrist or leg cuffs, nor did she have anything in which to tie them. She knew she would have to render at least one of them unconscious so that she could try to steal some rope from their camp. They were fully equipped with all sorts of gear. She could use their supplies against them.
She snuck up on the one she had followed and applied a chokehold to his neck. Within seconds, he was out. Now, she would have to work fast.
She crept to the edge of their camp and listened for activity. They were discussing whether their scout would return with any food. Maddie threw a rock to divert their attention. One of the men left to investigate, and Maddie snuck in, intending to incapacitate the other. What she didn’t count on was the other one’s speedy return to camp, and unfortunately for her, he was right behind her.
“
I would not do that if I were you,” he warned.
Maddie mentally kicked herself. She had been so sure of herself that she had let down her guard.
“Well, then, what would you have me do?” she asked sarcastically.
“Stepping away would be a good start.”
“Is that right?” she asked. She knew she had one chance to get away, and she would need the element of surprise. She also knew to do the opposite of what he expected, and that would be to turn and kick. With that in mind, she dropped to the ground and using her leg strength, she shot up from her lowered position and landed two crushing blows on her enemy’s knees. They immediately brought him down.
Next, she rolled to the right, toward the one she had planned to chokehold, grabbed him, and did just that. She rendered him unconscious in seconds. She knew her time was running out. Either she had to escape or complete her mission, but did she have enough time for completion?
One thing Maddie excelled at was hand-to-hand combat. She wasn’t as strong as her male counterparts, but she was wily, agile, and fast—extremely fast. Her confidence level was high and she knew she could most likely finagle a way to succeed. She made the decision to go for it.
She scanned the camp for some rope or a similar item that she could use to bind them. When she found what she needed, she grabbed the two men and bound their ankles and wrists. Then she found some rags and gagged them. She went back to her first victim and found him regaining consciousness. She quickly bound and gagged him as well.
She began to explore the region around the camp to see if she could discover the location of the weapons while she waited for enemy number four. Maddie was positive she was close, but she couldn’t figure out where they were.
She finally heard the fourth enemy making his return to camp. She sat in the brush and was surprised to see Ondine walk in. Oh, great, Maddie thought. Just what I need.
Ondine had continued to plague her ever since she arrived at the Academy. Maddie had tried everything she could to get Ondine to stop, but nothing worked. After this, Ondine would never let up on her.
“Stop where you are, put your hands in the air, and get down on your knees,” Maddie ordered.
Ondine actually followed Maddie’s commands. Maddie did a quick search and found her communicator. She was carrying no weapons, other than a dagger, which Maddie confiscated.
“I promise you, you will live to regret this,” Ondine warned.
“Are you kidding me? Really, Ondine, what would you have me do? Walk away from here and leave you? Seriously, get real. This isn’t some game we’re playing. I, like you, have an intense desire to graduate as a Guardian, and this will put me one step closer. One other thing, before I gag you, do you care to disclose the locations of your weapons?” Maddie took a stab, knowing Ondine wouldn’t oblige.
“You must be joking, right?”
“Nope. I just had to try, though,” Maddie said, catching her tongue between her teeth while giving Ondine the biggest grin.
Maddie quickly bound and gagged her, with unnecessary roughness, and gained a bit pleasure from it!
Their camp was set up close to a spring, so Maddie filled up her water container and resumed her search. It wasn’t long before she was rewarded with her goal. She found everything!
She went and collected all of their communicators and placed a call to her Commander requesting an extraction for all five of them.
When they returned to the training center, Maddie was called into her Commander’s office.
“First, my Lord Rowan requests you to contact him immediately. He said it was urgent. He has requested a pictographic audience with you.”
“Yes, sir, I will do it immediately,” Maddie said, wondering what was going on. She immediately started worrying about Rayn, hoping everything was okay.
“Furthermore,” her Commander continued, “I’d like to quickly and briefly congratulate you on this last mission. You succeeded in record time. No other trainee has completed a mission in the Unforgiving Forest this quickly. You will be awarded all the points as well as extra ones for the brief time it took you. Excellent work, Trainee Pearce!” he said.
“Thank you, sir. Now, if I may be excused?” At his nod, Maddie dashed to her quarters.
She ran to her compsys and tapped into the communications portal to call Rowan. In seconds, his image popped in her room.
“Rowan, is everything okay?”
“I wanted to warn you. Rayn is looking for you, and he is upset you were nowhere to be found. I put him off and tried to make up excuses, but he was very adamant about contacting you. You were off the grid, but I could not tell him that. Just be warned. You may want to reach out to him as quickly as you can.”
“Thank you, Rowan, for looking out for me. I was on a mission in The Unforgiving Forest.”
“How did it go?”
“Great! I set a new record at the Academy here!”
“Maddie, that’s wonderful! Congratulations! If Rayn knew, he would be extremely proud of you.”
“Well, I don’t know if he’d be proud or upset. Anyway, thanks for the heads up. Tell everyone hello and that I miss them.”
“You take care of yourself, my dear.”
“Yes, sir, I will. Bye.”
“
Rayn, are you busy?” Maddie called to him through her thoughts.
Rayn was in the middle of a conference at the Command Center on Earth. He sat amidst 50 Guardians, and they were proposing a new tactic to use on the Xanthians. When he heard Maddie, he quickly excused himself and left the room.
“Maddie, where have you been? What is going on? I have been worried about you. No one knew where you were!”
“I’m sorry, Rayn. I was at home, but I asked not to be disturbed because I had an awfully bad headache. I blocked all thoughts so that I could rest.” She abhorred lying to him, but she had no choice. She prayed she could fool him because he was ridiculously astute.
“Are you ill? Do you need to see Julian?”
“No, I am fine now. Julian explained that I might get these occasionally from my body converting here. How are you?” She was feeling intense guilt over her subterfuge. He was genuinely concerned about her well-being, and she was telling him a big whopping lie.
“Better now since you have put my mind at ease. I miss you. We have been meeting continuously over this conflict. I fear it may be quite some time before we can see each other.”
“Yes, Rowan has been keeping me in the know. That’s why I haven’t been reaching out to you. I know you’ve been very busy. Are they giving you any break at all?”
“Not much. I was able to escape to our favorite place on the mountain, but that has been awhile ago.”
“Well, maybe I can come visit you soon. I don’t want to interfere though.”
“Listen, Sunshine, you know I would love to see you, but I feel more comfortable with you on Vesturon right now. I know you say I worry too much, but it is my way. I cannot help it.”
Maddie knew too well about Rayn’s over protectiveness. It sometimes drove her crazy, but he only had her best interests at heart.
“I need to return to my conference, but I will try to contact you later. Take care of yourself, love.”
“I will, and you do the same. I love you!”
Whew, that was close, Maddie thought.
She was relieved it had gone so well, so in celebration, she headed to the shower. Ever since Maddie had entered training, she knew she had made the right decision. Gone was the timid, scared young girl of the time she was a captive of Darryl Carter. She felt like she had experienced a resurrection of sorts. She was confident, strong, and fully capable of taking care of herself. She had finally come into her own.
An hour later, Maddie was in the dining hall grabbing a quick bite when a group approached her, offering their congratulations. She was surprised it had already been posted. Usually, the mission results didn’t go up until the day after completion.
“Apparently you are going to get some kind of award,” one of the trainees, Saylan, said.
That was great news for Maddie. For every mission and challenge that the students participated in, they were awarded points. The points determined their class ranking. The ones with the most points would have their choice of duty fulfilled. This would help Maddie to get to serve on Earth with Rayn.
Out of the one hundred twenty-five trainees in her class, Maddie was the closest to Saylan. Saylan was a female around Maddie’s age that was serious about her training, but she was fun-loving at the same time. She had been a good supporter of Maddie in the beginning, when many people shied away from her because of her background.
Most of the trainees thought Maddie had been given special privileges because of her grandparents. None of them knew of her relationship with Rayn or the rest of the Yarrister family. She did not want that disclosed for obvious reasons.